project xvi

caravaggio ii: the hall of mirrors

coffee laments!! poor mr. wind-up-bird pt. 3

it's amazing what a face can do

to a face
& the tricks i can
do in front of
a mirror just by
standing still

ii
i can say the harm was golden,
gorgeous, even, now
because it was mine;
it belonged to no one else
& it taught me to poke
at my own wounds; &
i hummed to myself
that everything would
grow back in time

iii
like how this morning
for the first time
in months i saw
my face in the cup
of rippling coffee
& i kept drinking
anyway

& i tried to
speak last night
& i’m sorry that
my voice went
only as far as my
fingers

rain: to give
something a name
only to watch it
fall
 110 degrees with ginger ale

spiked & lemony

you were carelessly casual
like someone who’d spent
a lot of time stoned in nail
salons; the acetone killing everything
in it’s worrisomely morose path;

tell me, sitting

in the beige interior of your 90’s
camry, where it too smells of
acetone, what was it, exactly
that made you the vastness
you are?

unmarried; you
were sweeter than
a sugarcane

ii
slice the carrots thin, add them to the pan with
oil; bread in french is pain. pain in french is

iii
love. which is funny (cut
up the coriander, add, let wilt, add
egg, watch as it turns sun-yellow;
add sprig of parsley, steam)
because nothing good
ever came easily.

i found this out

as i drew a smiley face
on the steamed train
window; living far away, on the amtrak
where i should have alighted
before i double-crossed the
county line
like i was using “lord”
as another verb
parlez-moi de lui

tell me about him

is he life? or
is he something
more? is he
the red flower of
sin?

tell me about him?

is he the god of war?
one i’ve met before? or
is he life, or more?
sappho ii

i have not one word from friends frankly, i wish we were dead

when we left, i wept a great deal; you said to me

this parting must be endured, my love; but i go unwillingly

i said “go, and be happy, but remember whom you leave

shackled with ribbons of love, if you forget me, think of our gifts
to each other
and all of the loveliness that we shared

all of the flower crowns

braided rosebuds, sage and lavender
twined around young necks
witchhazel poured on your forehead,
and myrrh

& on soft nights

with all that we wished for
not a thought could fit between us

harmony in our being

no flowers bloomed
in spring without song
 hall of mirrors

“he’s venus as a boy”

ii
take me
all around the world tonight
show me a picture of myself
i dropped clean,
like a penny in a slot machine
into the sea where
only love remains;

the light streams

like i stepped into a movie scene
but your secrets are written on these
endless halls
it dropped clean, like a grain
of sand into the sea

iii
as i followed you
& there wasn’t a color that had made me shy
until i saw the blue
somewhere in the night with
a light in my eyes & wasn’t it
true?

but you linked through my fingers

and followed me into the hall
of mirrors
 square houses

on the northbound bus

now you’re one of us;
it was magic hour

three fast motorbikes

on the turnpike
send thanks to eisenhower

& as u play guitar

said i’d write a while
in the waking hour

in incandescent lights
antisocialites
watch a wilting flower

II
i didn’t see you in the street
so why were you in my dream
last night?
 patroclus 1

blinded, i would still know

him: if not from his sigh, then
his breathing; if not from
his hands, then the sound
of nimble feet
upon the grass;

if not from his voice

then from the sound
of the
summer evening burning
through
his hair
 patroclus 2

i was priceless
undeserving

i was the gardener;

the mellow nurturer whispering
“all things must pass”

i was the child;

a carefree dreamer with a shy
spring in his step

i was the lost; an

overthinker, a textbook
trojan horse

and all of my contents displayed

in the hall of mirrors
where, as you do
in the country of sons—
i was a boy, you see,
which means i was a murderer—
i voraciously devoured
each reflection and watched
as the tears ran
back into my eyes:
raindrops in a nightmare
 patroclus 3

it’s unfortunate that

this time has passed
so quickly

your eyes
were a hopeful
kerosene
blue; i watched the sprig
of summer evening light
falling upon the latticed
apple pie on meré’s
windowsill
where we sat and
watched the sun
set as if
called
 time is a motherfucker

we sat outside on your balcony

or porch– not sure what the noun
is for first-story balconies
but we sat nonetheless

& watched the rain

coming down, as if
called

rain: to give something

a name only to watch
it fall

& when it started

to snow; a glorious
flurry punctuated by
the sizzling fireflies
of your last cigarette

all i have to do is write

the right words and maybe
we could do that again;
all of us, friends, on
one balcony/porch
-light swinging above us
as we smiled for another
photo

& i write often,

watch as i flick my wrist
the muscular verbiage
pulls a house
from the snow: a wide
porch, like the one you
wanted- with a latticed apple
pie sitting
on the window
-sill
 & we’re dancing down
the street again / after
the thunderstorm / platelets
still plenty / in veins beneath
your cheek

& one morning i

saw the graveyard steaming
in the pinkish dawn, & i
laughed because
i knew the dead were
breathing

& i write some more:

like the line of cocaine
from a mohawked boy’s
collarbone in 2017
i write straightly,
doggedly,
suburban

& instead u make

songs, one that
erupted on the radio
but it’s static as
your mouth opens into
woah and let
me spell out these
m-a-p-l-e-s
just right so
we might
have more time
beneath the shade

“time is a
motherfucker” i
almost said once, to nobody

but what i really meant

was “time is a mother”;
its eyes nowhere blue and there
 let’s open the
page again, so it
points to a good part

where the sunflowers grow,

gold enough to take to the bank

where the streets are blue,

then quiet, then louder & louder

when it’s rush hour

where we were just two

boys again, sitting underneath
some clock or by a crucifix

wondering how
we will cry in the snow
& that isn’t it cool that

the stars are just stars

& we both know
we’ll only live
once this time
was it the crash that created us, or the debris?

lowercasedly
we lounged in your
loveseat, a pretty name
for that sort of thing.

people ask me why i never

write about happier things;
i tell them to check out
the “happy” section on my
website where nobody
ever goes, thus, it doesn’t
exist: if a tree falls, and nobody
hears its leaves, how did it live?

& how i hate the sun:

i feel entirely dehumanized by the sun,
and wish for fog, rain,
clouds, humanity.

& how some people

go to priests; others to friends;
i go to poetry, i go to my own heart,
i, to seek among phrases and fragments
something unbroken– i, to whom there is not
beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom
the touch of one person with another
is all, yet who cannot grasp even that;
who am so imperfect, so weak, so
unspeakably lonely

but i do not belong to people,

nor the world entire. i belong to
quick, futile moments of intense
emotion. i belong to these moments

just as our present tense

was never too late
 love in portofino

i adored you– you were

so soft. so diabolically
angelic-looking

and i promised when

we met again
we would have an official
fuck fest

but the morning after

is still yet to come

sour cherries / the golden fool saint

i burn; i shiver;
out of this sun, into
this shadow.

the green herbs

with goat cheese, the aged brie paired
with a small pot of strawberry jam,
the final sour cherry we kept politely
pushing onto each other’s plate, saying,
no, you. but it’s so good. no, it’s yours.
& how i finally put an end to it, plucked it
from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth.
& how good it tasted: so sweet and so tart.
& how good it felt: to want something and
pretend you don’t, and to get it anyway.
 the ocean waves

your favorite was jazz;

it didn’t matter who:
womack, davis
fitzgerald, armstrong

it didn’t matter whom

so much as the song itself
how did it propel you?
what sliver of reality did
it unfold for you; a mother,
did it point on the page, sound
the words out for you? an art
-iculation, so cocksure?

II
it didn’t matter
because we were going
to mariner’s apartment
complex, or somewhere
similar– we’d overlook the
red oily waters & think
of living, & think of sin

and in the sun,

none of it mattered anymore
but quite reversedly, it meant
the world

we watched the sunlight

glimmer; an overused word
but that’s exactly what it did
 new amsterdam lemon or maybe green apple if they have any

touch, tongue, green apple

good lord, green apple

& we walked through the gardens

swinging dancers all in tow
& you reached for your polaroid
because we left our phones at home
headphones missing from our song
we’re am radio
k-ghoul, or whatever’s next
i’ll dance wherever you go

& the waves hit the shore

& i only wanted more
the saxophone player interrupts
in the dive bar we call home

& i was sobbing in the backseat of

the afternoon with the absolute
divine feminine

hoping that at some point

that i’d hope it never ends
but if only at the beginning we would have
first been friends

i don’t think i’d have missed calls

green blue & again & again
michelangelo

I
because i feel as if my
life has been a
series of withdrawals
shortcomings

but you noticed that

& u will take that
and for that i’m glad

II
it’s been an
amazing feeling
planning a picnic for two

swinging in hammocks
on the south lawn
sangria, the stars, and u

III
is it cheating
if you’re in love
with the better version
of myself ?
michelangelo II

I
& i could keep doing this until my
brain doesn’t work anymore

a summer of youth wasted

wasted; faded, crooked jeans

II
the room was charged
with hope; we flung our words
into the air

a cherry blossom blooms

and the seven of us
watch

III
i enter the room
with the assumption
that nothing needs to
be fixed

ambition is powerless
in the face of a name

a sonnet
trees, paternalism
trees, again, being repeated, self-paternalism

& let’s write the

forest again
but with ink in hand
make it a wild/fire/flower

IV
linguistic registers
temporal proclivities
never felt better
than
V
this: all i needed was this
passing a green apple jolly rancher
back and forth, tongue to tongue

saying no, it’s yours

but it’s so good

VI
i wanted for, i longed for
a taste of his
divine specificity

a sip, perhaps
of the sublime reciprocity

of two stoned dancers

last ones out

VII
and when i speak the
word “love”

it is tainted with everything

i carry; everything we carried
into this room, into this light

white sunlight peeks through your

blind/ing us until we
cannot see anything

but the morning haloed around

broken heads

a crescent blade of light

holding within it: contrast

VIII
if i cannot escape it
i must tend to my
curiosities
beyond my identity

i taint it again & again

a shattered monolith
with escapist dreams
nothing i ever write
is what it shouldn’t seem

it is i, & i, & i, & again i

written out on
printed maroon ink
on pressed yellow pages

in michelangelo’s afternoon
the hissing of summer longs

a heat wave burns through the southern lawn

& i fold up the picnic blanket, and return to
home: a meaningless word
to those who have only just
re-found their own

an evening, summerless
godless and so daring:
quiero alguien que se atreva
just so i might have a dance
once again

the valley unfolds as the summerers eat

& dance & do yoga in the meadow
gentrified helplessness disguised as wellness
disquiets me
& i unfold, & join them

II

i am punctuated, punctured
by this summer longing:
long days, long daze, longer nights

& the hissing of crickets

or cicadas, or juniper beyond the wooden fence
past the wooden fence & thriving

there i was, hair left unraveled

further down the path less traveled
standing stoic, blue & denim
eyes not blue but clear like heaven

standing softly in the summer lawn:

a single moment, and it’s clear
that in trying to long the summer
i’m letting this summer disappear
80’s japan / lounging like a dog / real night to realize

when we get on
the midnight train: we alight
eventually
such a lovely word, a whispered word

i’m leaving on the midnight train: i’m leaving on the 12:15

sometimes i wonder what goes on behind

the steel blue tunnels of your steel blue mind
the two bullet trains of your dark brown eyes

real night to realize

wear the ancient crown
from disparate fruitions
we were sequestered – passive voice
a passive leaning

getting on a train full of quandary

drinking from my bottle, not unkindly

& when we alit, the station

was sunrise pink
the honeyed gold of white sunlight
was a blade between shoulders, into the
thing that makes us breathe

& we walked to the promenade

waves upon waves upon waves

& laid the blanket down to rest, in the sun, in the shade
in the shadow & light

the ocean green nowhere, blue & there

look, pointing at a stark
there are trees here
cypress enough to be pine
woodsmoke, i’m told, is what i am
lingering in the air, smell
lingering in your hair,
clothes

i only smoked a cigarette once,

to understand the smog rising
from the land of 1000 fires
a californication, reinterpretation

of what 80’s japan can bring:

nonadaptationary; a blue
bird gulls above us

lamenting on how awful a wednesday can be

on how amazing a wednesday can be

dressed up like forest punk kids

living everywhere, nowhere and there

hanashi kaketa katta plays in

the background

life’s dark but it’s just a game

that’s what you would say

II

& we return / on the midnight train

your eyes / clearer than revenant
oh how the light folds / in the hall of mirrors
where you can touch your reflection
1000 times / and it changes with
each reclamation / this is i
& i / & i, still /

when we alight / back in town

you remind me / it’s a real night
to realize / such things / as these